The legislature met under these humble circumstances at Newark on the 17th September, 1792.  Chief Justice Osgoode was the speaker of the council, and Colonel John Macdonell, of Aberchalder, who had gallantly served in the royal forces during the revolution, was chosen presiding officer of the assembly.  Besides him, there were eleven Loyalists among the sixteen members of the lower house.  In the council of nine members there were also several Loyalists, the most prominent being the Honourable Richard Cartwright, the grandfather of the minister of trade and commerce in the Dominion ministry of 1896-1900.

SECTION 2.—­Twenty years of political development (1792-1812).

The political conditions of the two decades from 1792 until 1812, when war broke out between England and the United States, were for the greater part of the time quite free from political agitation, and the representatives of the people in both the provinces of Canada were mostly occupied with the consideration of measures of purely provincial and local import.  Nevertheless a year or two before the close of this period we can see in the province of Lower Canada premonitions of that irrepressible conflict between the two houses—­one elected by the people and the other nominated by and under the influence of the crown—­which eventually clogged the machinery of legislation.  We can also see the beginnings of that strife of races which ultimately led to bloodshed and the suspension of the constitution given to Lower Canada in 1791.

In 1806 Le Canadien, published in the special interest of “Nos institutions, notre langue, et nos lois,” commenced that career of bitter hostility to the government which steadily inflamed the antagonism between the races.  The arrogance of the principal officials, who had the ear of the governor, and practically engrossed all the influence in the management of public affairs, alienated the French Canadians, who came to believe that they were regarded by the British as an inferior race.  As a matter of fact, many of the British inhabitants themselves had no very cordial feelings towards the officials, whose social exclusiveness offended all who did not belong to their special “set.”  In those days the principal officials were appointed by the colonial office and the governor-general, and had little or no respect for the assembly, on which they depended in no wise for their continuance in office or their salaries.  The French Canadians eventually made few distinctions among the British but looked on them as, generally speaking, enemies to their institutions.